


Natural Progression

by pringlesaremydivision



Category: Real Person Fiction
Genre: M/M, Sibling Incest, obscure fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-04-20
Updated: 2004-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-23 06:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pringlesaremydivision/pseuds/pringlesaremydivision
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You promised Owen when you were eight that you'd never fall in love with a girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Natural Progression

**Author's Note:**

> Just moving some stuff over from Livejournal.

You promised Owen when you were eight that you'd never fall in love with a girl. You'd wrinkled your nose when he'd mentioned Susie Gordon down the street, Susie with her bright pink bike and her curly brown hair. It wasn't that you didn't like her, because you did - she was nice, and she always shared her toys and let you come over for lunch when her mom made grilled cheese sandwiches, because she knew that was your favorite. And if you thought about it, you guessed she was pretty. It's just you could never imagine wanting to be around her instead of being around - well, instead of being around Owen. You didn't tell him that, though, just shook your head and muttered _no_ and _never_ and _ew_ , and stuck your tongue out at him when he smiled.  
  
Owen had laughed at you and ruffled your hair with that maddeningly superior eleven year old way he had, laughed and told you it wouldn't always be that way, and you remember the way your heart tugged with something you couldn't name when his fingers slid down from the top of your head to your shoulder, his fingers warm against your skin.  
  
::  
  
Your house was plenty big enough, and each of you could have had your own room if you'd wanted, but Andrew was the only one who took advantage of it. You and Owen shared a room, twin beds on either side, yours next to the door and his under the window, and for the longest time you had matching blue and white comforters, not because you both liked them (you prefered red) but because your mother told you if you were in the same room you'd have to match.  
  
You'd thought about it and decided you'd take a blue and white comforter over a red one if it meant Owen, and so you didn't complain.  
  
Sometimes at night you'd crawl into bed with him, shoving him over next to the wall, and you'd tell him it was because it was too hot on your side of the room. He'd tell you it'd just be warmer with the two of you in the same bed but he'd move over anyway, holding the covers up so you could climb in. You'd shift and twitch, legs kicking against the worn cotton sheets, until he threw an arm around you and told you if you didn't quit moving you'd have to go back to your own bed.  
  
You'd lay perfectly still after that, scarcely daring to breathe, and watch the way the moonlight played over his face.  
  
It stayed that way until you were almost fourteen, going from once in a while to almost every night, and as far as you know neither of you ever said anything about it - not for any reason, just because you wanted to keep it to yourself.  
  
You never wanted to share that picture of Owen, his eyes closed and lips slightly parted, his hand a loose curl against the pillow, with anyone else.  
  
::  
  
You realized you might feel something more than the run-of-the-mill brotherly love for Owen when you caught him jacking off in the shower.  
  
You were seventeen at the time, seventeen to his twenty, and he was home for the weekend from college. He had walked in the door, dropped his dirty grey duffel bag on the new hardwood floor (it had fallen with a crash and your mother had winced reflexively; you can remember the tiny worry lines that formed between her eyebrows), and then tackled you to the ground, arms wrapped around you in a bear hug.  
  
It had knocked the wind out of you when you hit the floor, your back slamming hard against the unyielding wood, and it took you a minute just to catch your breath, and a minute more to slow it down. You buried your face in his shoulder, smelling his cologne, and when you laughed and told him you were glad he was home, your voice sounded shaky, even to you.  
  
Later that night, after a welcome-home dinner where you could barely keep a smile off your face, the corners of your mouth quirking upwards with every word Owen said, he'd muttered something about washing the dirt out of his hair, and your father had laughed and asked him what the hell he was getting up to in college.  
  
Nothing, dad, he'd drawled with a wink and a grin, and he'd gone upstairs, dragging his feet. You'd heard the water turn on moments later, and you'd excused yourself from the table and walked upstairs too.  
  
You were never able to say why you opened the door that night; never were able to explain the reasoning behind your fingers on the cool brass doorknob; never found an explanation for letting the door swing open and your head peek around it, covert, cautious, like a little boy sneaking a look at Christmas presents.  
  
But it happened, and you remember planting one foot inside, bare toes on the white tile, and then stopping dead. You remember a dark shadow on the cream-colored shower curtain, blurred at the edges from steam. The outline of Owen's body, one arm braced against the wall, the other moving up and down, and even though all you could see was a hazy silhouette, you knew exactly what was going on - of course you knew, how could you not? - and when your hand moved down to the front of your own jeans you were only moderately surprised.  
  
You could hear his unsteady breathing from over the patter of the water, his unsteady breathing and the occasional strangled groan, and you had to bite your lip to keep yourself quiet. He came moments after you, his outline going rigid and then slack, and you let out a breath you didn't know you were holding in.  
  
You didn't wait for him to turn the shower off, managed to shut the door and walk away before he noticed you were there, and you threw your jeans in the hamper and changed your boxers before he came out of the bathroom, toweling his hair dry.  
  
He'd smiled at you and asked you what was wrong, told you that you looked like you'd just seen a ghost, and you'd just laughed weakly and mumbled something about being tired, all the while watching the tiny droplets of water cling to his chest.  
  
::  
  
You kissed him on the night of your twenty-first birthday. He had taken you out for drinks - legal, baby, he'd said with a grin, ruffling your hair the way he used to do when you were younger, and the feeling it had sparked was exactly the same except much more recognizable now - but you'd decided halfway to the bar that buying a case of beer and getting trashed and sitting in his pickup truck in the middle of a field somewhere sounded like more of a good time, so that was exactly what you did.  
  
You watched the way his fingers fiddled with the radio through a beer-cloudy haze, idly wondering if you'd be sick tomorrow, because you'd been drunk before but never, never _this_ drunk. There was something extra-intoxicating that night, and whether it was the air or the fact that it was legal or the fact that you'd lost track of how many drinks you'd actually had, you didn't know. You played with the half-empty bottle in your hands, listening to the liquid roll around, hitting the glass, and leaned your head against the back of your seat, inhaling and smelling dust and flowers and Owen, and you'd smiled.  
  
He'd settled on one of the classic rock stations, Zeppelin pouring out of the speakers at a volume that was tolerable even with the headache you could feel starting around your temples. He'd leaned one arm out the window, drumming his fingers against the side of the car along with the beat, and he opened his mouth and then closed it again. You could almost see the words hovering unspoken before his lips, only you didn't know what they were, and suddenly you had to, suddenly it was completely, absolutely imperative that you knew.  
  
But first you had to stop his fingers, had to make them quit the noise that was echoing in your head, and so you crawled over the seat and reached your hand out the window and ended up sprawled gracelessly in his lap, his fingers loosely curled with yours.  
  
You'd blinked up at him and he'd smiled a little, lips curving up in that way that he had, the way you always kind of thought of as your smile, because you'd never seen him smile just that way at anyone else, and Owen smiled a lot. What are you doing down there?, he'd asked you, and you'd blinked again and tightened your grip on his hand.  
  
Words, you'd mumbled, find the - words, and then you'd shifted up and your lips were on his, and you didn't know exactly how that had happened but it had, and you kept your eyes open in case you never got another chance.  
  
He'd tilted his head back and looked at you, forehead wrinkled, and then he'd reached up his other hand and pushed your hair back away from your face and tilted his head in slowly, and somewhere in the back of your mind you'd thought _wrong_ and _too old for this now_ and _brother_ but then you were kissing, messy and sloppy and drunken, and all you could think was _Owen_ , and you'd loved him all your life, loved him for as long as you could remember knowing how to love, and that had made it okay, somehow.  
  
You'd slept in the truck that night, out in the open under the stars, and Owen had covered you both with a blanket he had stashed under the seat, had covered you and then thrown one arm lazily around you and dropped his head on your shoulder. The last thing that crossed your thoughts before you drifted off was _belonging_ , and you supposed that's what it had been about all along, and you'd kissed his forehead and fallen asleep with a smile.


End file.
